Police Chief Places Blame For Deaths of Two Officers

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: February 11, 2006

The chief of the Jersey City Police Department blamed state transportation officials on Friday for the deaths of two officers who drove off an open vertical lift bridge, saying that the bridge was in chronic disrepair and that the operators compounded the danger by failing to tell the officers exactly when the deck was going to be raised.

Chief Robert A. Troy delivered a minute-by-minute report of the Christmas night accident, from the first businesslike call that the bridge needed to be lifted for a passing tugboat to the final grief-streaked radio transmissions made seconds after Officers Shawn Carson and Robert Nguyen plunged into the frigid waters of the Hackensack River.

''The bridge is open, and the truck just went inside the water,'' one officer yelled, according to the transcript of police transmissions.

''I'm gonna need the scuba team,'' another screamed.

At Friday's news conference, Chief Troy said: ''That bridge should never have been lifted. I believe the blame lies with the Department of Transportation,'' he added, ''with other factors involved.''

Those factors, the chief explained, were communication lapses within the Police Department that kept the two officers from knowing the bridge was up.

''Our department has communication issues,'' Chief Troy acknowledged. ''But those problems alone,'' he reiterated, were not responsible for the officers' deaths.

The Jersey City report comes two weeks after state transportation officials released their own findings, which said that the bridge operators did nothing wrong and that the two dead officers might not have been paying attention.

According to the Jersey City report, a Department of Transportation official called the police at 7:36 p.m. on Dec. 25 for help blocking traffic on the Lincoln Highway Bridge, which connects Jersey City and Kearny.

The ungainly iron bridge had a long record of safety problems, and a recent accident damaged a gate on the deck. While state officials were waiting for spare parts, they relied on local police to block traffic, though state officials never told police commanders the full extent of the bridge's problems.

Two Jersey City officers were initially sent to the bridge, followed by Officers Carson and Nguyen, who were dispatched to provide extra flares. After dropping off the flares, Officers Carson and Nguyen drove away, with the two other officers running frantically behind them, trying to stop them.

The report put to rest several issues. Were the two officers who died intoxicated? Toxicology reports said no. How long were they on the bridge before they drove off? About five minutes. How thick was the fog? Not very.

But the report failed to clear up an essential question that has dogged police from the beginning: How did two officers already on the bridge know the bridge was up, but not Officers Carson and Nguyen?

Chief Troy said he was forwarding his findings to the Hudson County prosecutor's office for further review. State officials said they could not comment on the report because of a pending lawsuit. Officer Nguyen's family has notified state officials of plans to sue for wrongful death.